BlackBerry Is Killing Its Music Streaming Service That No One But BlackBerry Thought Would Be A Hit (BBRY)

Steve Kovach, provided by

Published 8:28 am, Friday, April 5, 2013

BlackBerry is killing its BBM Music product, a streaming music service for BlackBerry devices that launched in 2011. The company confirmed the news to The New York Times.

BBM Music cost users $5 per month, which is half the price of popular streaming services like Spotify, but also limited you to 50 songs per month. You could only get more songs if your BBM contacts also subscribed to BBM Music.

A lot of critics panned BBM Music's concept (examples: here, here, and here) due to its limitations. BlackBerry defended it of course, and we spent a long time on the phone one afternoon with a company executive who tried to convince us it was a good idea.

BlackBerry said in its statement to The New York Times that it was shutting BBM Music down after a "strategic business review" and declined to say how man subscribers the service had.